blogbrainsmallSeacoast History Blog #47

May 17, 2009 

 

 

For a decade or two I’ve been droning on about how Smuttynose Island is one of the prime archeological treasures of the Northeast. I didn’t know what I was talking about, of course. I’m not an archeologist. But it just stands to reason, based on the history of the former Church Island as a 17th century fishing outpost and it’s largely unspoiled and uninhabited condition today. The Shoals are often referenced as a stopping point for visitors traveling the Eastern coastline in the 1600s. Last week Prof. Nathan Hamilton of the University of Southern Maine said pretty much the same thing at a meeting of the Smuttynose Stewards in Rye. Hamilton and his students did a test pit last summer and will continue their work in 2009. (Continued below)

 

 

More Test Pits in Summer Study

 

The Isles of Shoals archeology project begun last season has four more years to run. When all the data is collected and analyzed we will have a much clearer idea exactly how important Smuttynose is to the history of early fisheries. Hamilton worked with Faith Harrington back in the 1990s. Her still unpublished study of a series of test pits on the Shoals is already an underground classic.

 

Smuttynose has long been the victim of treasure hunters who comb below the high tide line with their electronic beachcombing machines. Too many legends of pirate treasure have been reported on too many web sites. The whole pirates-burying-their-treasure-onshore thing is pretty ridiculous. First of all, there’s almost no place to bury anything at the Shoals. The topsoil is inches deep and much of it wasn’t even there in the days when pirates may or may not have visited. If there are caves untouched by the tides, I’ve not found them. Anything wedged between rocks by a passing pirate would be long gone. The breakwaters were not there in the 1700s.

 

There certainly were shipwrecks in the area, but whatever washed ashore seems to have stopped washing by the 20th century. I’m totally suspicious of the claim that Sam Haley found bars of silver here. It’s a good story, but so far just another of those popular myths that the Laightons used to lure the tourists. Divers still find plenty of broken crockery and lots of trash in from the old hotels in the waters around the islands.

 

The artifacts that get archeologists excited may be a cache of mollusk shells. Hamilton knows the bivales of the region inside out. These shells can reveal volumes about water temperature, human habitation, even the coming and going of wooden ships that carried shellfish attached to their hulls. That’s what scientists mean by treasure. 

 

Last year’s small test pit in front of the Haley House turned of thousands of artifacts – shells, pipe stems, nails, bones, crockery, even a few coins and an old hotel key.  I think there was even a rusty colonial pair of scissors.

 

These artifacts are meaningful when excavated scientifically. The professionals get the bulk of their data, not just from the objects themselves, but from plotting exactly where and how deep they are found in the thin soil. Without this data, the artifacts lose their significance, which is why we tell people not to dig into the ground if humanly possible at sites like Smuttynose.

 

According to Hamilton and others, the earliest prehistoric artifacts are likely long gone. Men working for European fishing ships probably rolled up the peat-like covering on the rocky Shoals and burned it for warmth. Professionals can clearly tell what artifacts come from what time period –  as long as they are discovered in the original soil.

 

We don’t know what these small professional digs will uncover, but we can guess. Already scientists are seeing evidence of the early giant cod, weighing over 100 pounds, that were plentiful in the deep cold waters here until, apparently, our ancestors fished them into extinction. We expect to see that colonial islanders ate lots of imported goats, a variety of birds including the extinct great auk, and a wide range of fish and shellfish.

 

Hamilton’s group -- who will be staying at the Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore --  is also interested in studying the very early tourist trade on Smuttynose that began with the 19th century. Researchers will be looking around the site of the Mid Ocean House of Entertainment that was run by the Haley family, then the Laightons, the Beckers and others.

 

We’ll know a lot more by the end of the summer. Turns out that the researchers will be on island the entire week my wife and I will be there in June as stewards of Smuttynose Island. So I should be able to report back to you from our up close and personal vantage point.

 

It can take years, even decades, to fully decode the bits of data that come from a dig like this. So don’t hold your breath. But one study tends to inspire another. Hamilton’s research will allow historians to compare what was going on at Smuttynose with studies of islands in Casco Bay, in the Canadian Maritimes and other early fishing posts. That can be compared to the mainland information from the 1700s as colonial fishermen moved off the islands to sites like the one in South Berwick where Prof. Tad Baker spent his last 10 summers.

 

Archeology Is less about dramatic discoveries and more about connecting the dots. It is a labor intensive way to learn. The goal is not to dig up everything, but to sample what is buried in the soil, compare that with what we already know, and slowly increase the database about this most visited, and still most mysterious of islands.

 

© 2009 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.

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Digging into Smuttynose Past